~ an enthusiastic meddler exploring photography

Planning and Execution

This is by far my most popular photo on flickr for a long time, garnering fifteen “faves” in two and a half days, along with many more comments and views than most of my uploads get.. This is obviously very flattering and encouraging to find that plenty of other people like my shots as much as I do.I was particularly pleased with how this turned out, and I like to think it came off because for once the planning was done, and helped the execution. Planning wise, I had the (not terribly original, I’ll admit) idea, and knew this location would be a reasonably good place to get a better than average traffic shot. There’s a nice view from the bridge, with a good curve, and a junction to boot. Time wise, I knew that it would still be reasonably dark if I went before work, and with traffic still moving enough to be interesting. However, it wouldn’t be too dark to not get a decent shot of the landscape, nor too bright for people to still have lights on. But I figured it would be too bright to get a properly long exposure without filters. So that all meant packing camera, spare battery, 10-22mm lens, cable release, tripod, and ND filters. Normally I’d forget at least one of these, but not this time. So then, execution. I parked and walked down to the bridge and set up. I’d brought the gorillapod instead of the big tripod, which enabled me to get closer to the road, by wrapping it around the top of the railing. Couple of test shots at f/11 to check the framing and exposure, then shot off a few longer ones with the ND64. Job done.